News tagged with password

(Phys.org) —If you're in the business of cracking codes, it would be pretty difficult to break into a security system that you don't even know is there. That's one of the advantages of molecular keypad locks, whose small ...

(Phys.org) —Sources from several Web hosting services this week raised an all-out alert: WordPress was under attack with at least 90,000 IP addresses involved to brute-force crack credentials of WordPress sites. The attacks, ...

(Phys.org)—In what has become an annual tradition, SplashData, a company that makes productivity applications for smartphones, has released a list of passwords it claims are the most commonly used to access online applications. ...

(Phys.org) -- As password systems alone prove inadequate to protect information on computers against hackers, security customers have taken the advice of vendors to step up to tokens, those online security credentials that ...

Hackers tried to get the best of Hotmail by figuring out how to reset Hotmail user passwords for e-mail accounts this month. Locking hotmail users out of their own accounts when trying to key in their passwords was something ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- First-time computer users in the early days, pre-hacking security traumas, were confronted with a new life requirement: creating and remembering system passwords. Not too easy, users were warned, to protect ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Only a few days after Sony brought their PlayStation Network back on-line hackers have shown that the PSN is still vulnerable to attacks. This time around hackers have reset user account passwords by using ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers has demonstrated how passwords in iPhones and iPads can be retrieved from a stolen or lost device in only six minutes, even if it is locked. The passwords can include access passwords ...

Password

A password is a secret word or string of characters that is used for authentication, to prove identity or gain access to a resource (Example: An access code is a type of password). The password must be kept secret from those not allowed access.

The use of passwords is known to be ancient. Sentries would challenge those wishing to enter an area or approaching it to supply a password or watchword. Sentries would only allow a person or group to pass if they knew the password. In modern times, user names and passwords are commonly used by people during a log in process that controls access to protected computer operating systems, mobile phones, cable TV decoders, automated teller machines (ATMs), etc. A typical computer user may require passwords for many purposes: logging in to computer accounts, retrieving e-mail from servers, accessing programs, databases, networks, web sites, and even reading the morning newspaper online.

Despite the name, there is no need for passwords to be actual words; indeed passwords which are not actual words may be harder to guess, a desirable property. Some passwords are formed from multiple words and may more accurately be called a passphrase. The term passcode is sometimes used when the secret information is purely numeric, such as the personal identification number (PIN) commonly used for ATM access. Passwords are generally short enough to be easily memorized and typed.

For the purposes of more compellingly authenticating the identity of one computing device to another, passwords have significant disadvantages (they may be stolen, spoofed, forgotten, etc.) over authentications systems relying on cryptographic protocols which are more difficult to circumvent.